1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image print apparatus, an image print method, a program for image print method, and a recording media recording a program for image print method and, especially, applicable to the printing of images for use in scrapbooking. More particularly, the present invention is intended to be applicable to scrapbooking by superimposingly displaying a user-selected template on an image subject to processing, accepting a change in the relative positional relationship between the image and the template in this display or a change in the size of the image and/or the template, and printing a resultant image, thereby easily and surely canceling a mismatch between ruler and photograph.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, scrapbooking for creating scrap books has been gaining popularity. Scrapbooking is one of paper craft hobbies, in which photographs are trimmed into desired shapes, trimmed photographs are embellished in a variety of manners, and embellished photographs are attachingly laid out on mounts, thereby creating an original scrapbook.
In order to satisfy the needs of scrapbooking hobbyists, various tools and materials are supplied, such as various kinds of mounts, decorations for various kinds of embellishments, various kinds of rulers for photograph clipping, and various kinds of scissors, and so on. By use of any of these rulers, an outline can be drawn on a photograph, which is cut along the outline with a pair of scissors into a star, a heart, or rhombus, for example, to be attached on a mount.
With respect to these various processes associated with scrapbooking, Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2004-114464 and so on disclose methods of directly printing images on album sheets by use of layouts selected by users. Also, JP-A-2003-532205 discloses a method of setting the format of each image so as to correspond to the layout of each album and then printing the formatted image. Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2004-268353 discloses a method of selectively printing an area specified by user. Japanese Patent Laid-open No. Hei 11-321010 discloses a method of printing trim marks for trimming photographs, along with images.
In clipping a photograph by use of a ruler in scrapbooking, the subject in the photograph may be smaller or larger than the ruler. In such a case, the size of the ruler may be matched with the size of the photograph, the size of the photograph may be matched with the size of the ruler, or the both the sizes may be altered. If the mismatch between ruler and photograph can be easily and surely removed, a scrapbook may be easily created as intended in design, thereby significantly enhancing the joy of scrapbooking.
In this case, the above-mentioned method disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2004-114464 or JP-A-2003-532205 may be applied to print photographs. However, these methods diminish the joy of creating scrapbooks by manually clipping photographs. It is also possible to apply the method disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2004-268353 or Japanese Patent Laid-open No. Hei 11-321010. However, these methods are practically inapplicable to complicated and various photograph clipping operations associated with scrapbooking.